I recently discovered the new Google Reader "Explore" section, just above my subscriptions in the left-hand panel: Using it like my screenshot above - not expanded - means that when I click on the "Explore" text, I get an endless, combined feed of everything Google Reader thinks I might like (there's actually been some good stuff there too) for the price of one line of text. This is much handier than viewing a list of feed titles using the old "Browse for stuff" link and having to make a decision to even click on a feed based on the title, author and...

I love the DailyWTF blog and recently had a WTF moment of my own while signing up at the Blockbuster (Australia) website:   In my case the password wasn't long enough, but Blockbuster effectively "threw the book" at me and dumped all the password error text onto the screen. I read and re-read the highlighted text but it still didn't make sense, especially considering I didn't use any non-alphanumeric characters. If something should "contain at least zero" then it could also be written "should not contain" which might have come off better. Tags: wtf, blockbuster, design, ui, error

At work we have a very simple microwave with only 4 buttons (not counting the door open lever/button): This microwave manages to be one of the most effective user interfaces I've ever come across. Pressing the plus ("+") button ups the time in 10 second increments, until you reach 90 seconds, and then it ups the time in 1 minute intervals. Once you pass 90 seconds, the display shows whole minutes. You can't set a time of 17 seconds, for example, or even 6 minutes and 30 seconds. Pressing the minus button decreases the time by 1 minute if the current time...

I'm the proud owner of a Logitech "Harmony" remote that controls the TV, DVD, and sound system in my lounge room. I'm not surprised at a recent (Logitech-sponsored) European survey that I read about at Jasper van Kuijk's blog which points out:in 25% of homes, there is only 1 person who knows how to operate all the technology87% of homes have three or more remote controls49% of homes have five or more remote controls I can openly say that my Logitech remote was one of the best tech buys I've ever made. It's key feature is that it groups commands around...

We've got a boiling water unit in the tea room that I pass by every day, that is over-engineered. I feel a short rant coming on... This boiling water unit's primary function is to deliver boiling water, so people can make their instant coffee or tea. It does this well - there's a big black button that, when pushed, runs boiling water from a nozzle directly underneath the button. So far, so good. If the boiling water unit was limited to this functionality, it could be regarded as a success. However, it also has: an screen with the time and day of the...

I've recently finished the excellent Defensive Design for the Web, authored by some of the people behind 37 Signals (Getting Real, Signal vs. Noise blog). The book is subtitled "How to improve error messages, help, forms and other crisis points", and is referenced in Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think - one of the key reasons behind me reading it (I enjoyed Steve Krug's book a lot). At only 246 pages, Defensive Design is a short book which means it's a quick read (and not very expensive!). There's lots of illustrations, and the book is neatly divided up into digestible chapters,...

I'm definitely CSS-challenged, so I was interested when I found the CSS Layout Generator, which allows you to enter how many columns, whether you want a header and/or footer, and colors for your page layout. It then provides the CSS and HTML, optionally validated for HTML or XHTML (link via Daniel Walzenbach, via Jason Haley). Tags: web, layout, design, css

Here's an interesting metric (via Usability in the News) for testing websites: Q: “What percentage of your interface contains stuff that your customers want to see?” 10% 25% 100% If you answer a, or b then you might do well, but you'll probably get blown out of the water once someone decides to enter the market with option c. (continued at "A really simple metric for measuring User Interfaces" at iQ Blog) This test could easily be applied to utility-type software whether web or windows e.g. Flickr or WinZip (it would be a little harder to apply the principle to fully-fledged applications, where "infrastructure" user interface...

Last week there was a post on Lifehacker about a free online button maker (the post also mentioned "Classy Glassy Buttons", a site I have used before). I've found that there's lots of tutorials for making modern looking buttons in Photoshop, some with downloadable Photoshop files, but not having Photoshop means I can only "ooh" and "aah" at the resulting output. If I was to use a tool for making graphic elements like buttons or tabs for use on web pages, it would need to be free. Since my main line of work is not graphic design, so I don't have the...

Reporting Services puts parameter selection before the top of the report, with (at most) 2 parameters on a row. If your report has a lot of parameters (my example below has 5), the parameter section can take up a lot of room: As an aside, having multiple parameters is better than having multiple reports which differ only by a WHERE clause in the database. Parameters are your friend - it's just the parameter display (which is not configurable at all) that I'm trying to look at here. So taking up a lot of screen real estate with parameters is a bad thing....